By David Crystal

New from Cambridge University Press!

By Peter Mark Roget

This book "supplies a vocabulary of English words and idiomatic phrases 'arranged … according to the ideas which they express'. The thesaurus, continually expanded and updated, has always remained in print, but this reissued first edition shows the impressive breadth of Roget's own knowledge and interests."

This study presents a new approach to the analysis of spoken language. Itsaims are threefold: to make systematic use of video material in order todemonstrate that the conditions under which language is produced arecrucial for its structure. Secondly, to show that timing - the moment anutterance is made in relation to the event it describes - also shapes thelinguistic output, and thirdly, to show that verbless structures are anintegral part of spoken language. Their occurrence can be linked tospecific extra-linguistic situations and event types. The data consists ofEnglish and German language live radio broadcasts of international footballgames and video material containing the corresponding TV footage todetermine the extra-linguistic events that are referred to in the radiocommentaries.